Ferragosto Season.

We arrived in late July in Rome in 2007 with a mountain of luggage I kid you not, we probably had 5 suitcases each plus a large dog kennel for our Reesie who in his old age and deaf had accompanied us to Rome. Arriving on the eve of the great vacation month of August has its challenges for North Americans who are not used to seeing an entire country come to a standstill because everyone is gone to the beach or the mountain.

Fiumicino airport, one of the departure-arrival pods. 

We were met at the airport by my colleague and a small van and an embassy driver. It was afternoon around 4pm and we drove from the seaside where the Rome Airport Fiumicino is located to la Città some 35 Km away. It is very green on the way into the city and there are lots of Mediterranean Pines those famous umbrella pines which gives Rome that special look. The driver took us along the highway and then just after the suburb of EUR we came into the city proper down the great avenue San Gregorio Magno to the Arch of Constantine and the Palatine Hill, around the Colosseum and then up the hill towards the Aurelian Walls. We were in awe, Rome looked majestic as it should. There was also surprisingly little traffic and the city had already assumed that look of summer holiday.

The Column of Trajan 

The Palatine Hill amongst the Pines

Via San Gregorio Magno, on the left the Arch of Constantine and on the right the Colosseum.

When we got home to our new digs which was down Via Nomentana outside the walls at Via Asmara the neighbourhood had the look of being deserted, everything was tranquil, all the stores where shuttered. My colleague explained that with Fer'Agosto approaching the only stores open would be on reduced hours and the rest would remain close, so if we wanted anything it would have to wait until September 7 when school starts again and everyone gradually returns to the City. It is the same tradition everywhere else in Italy.

Just 10 years prior another colleague who had been on posting in Rome explained how during this period if you wanted fresh milk and eggs or bread you had to make arrangements with farmers around Rome who supplied clients in the City. The philosophy of all this was that everyone deserves a vacation and why not in August, the only problem is that everyone in Italy is on vacation at the same time. Meaning crowded highways, beaches and country resorts, many also visit the family in the Paese (village) where they come from.

So our first summer in Rome was spent exploring a neighbourhood which was deserted and quiet. There was one restaurant opened near us I Limoncini on Via Del Giuba and it was pleasant to have dinner in the evening.
We started to discover Roman and Italian cuisine specialty, much of it being seafood, veal chop, young lamb chops and various pasta dishes unknown to us. Limoncini's specialty was spaghetti with a delicate lemon sauce. With time we became friendly with the owner, his wife and son Cristiano.

The shopping streets around us like Via Libia or Via Tripoli or Via Eritrea all the shops were closed, what a sad sight but when life came back in early September we were even more surprised to see so many shops. You can tell by the name of the streets that this neighbourhood was build between 1925 and 1936 during the prosperous years of the Fascist Era, the streets bear the names of the colonies of Italy in that period. The architecture is in the brutal modern style re-calling the Antique Roman style.

I would go to work, walking down Via Nomentana to Via Zara where my office was a good 15 minute walk but always pleasant, the streets are lined with tall old trees forming a green canopy. Since this street as always been outside the walls of the city it was lined with great suburban villas and parks, once owned by the wealthy families of Rome. Today many have been converted to other uses but the parks surrounding them are just as beautiful as always.
I passed a park in Villa Paganini and noticed that the grass was growing tall, indeed even city municipal services were cut back. It would be tended to in September when the city workers would come back.

This was 2007 by 2008 things had changed, the holiday period started around the 5 August instead of a week earlier. The economic situation in Italy was not good and people cut their vacation short.
Then in 2009 the date was pushed back to 10 August and the rumour was that many did not leave the city at all but hid in their apartment, the shame of having to admit to your neighbours that you could not afford to leave the city for 3 week vacation with the family. I am told that this year only those who can really afford a vacation leave the rest will take 8 days which is the period between 10 to the 18 August. Fewer shops close, many do not close at all but operate on reduced hours.
The economic situation is such that life has become difficult for the majority.

During our period in Italy, we travelled to the Adriatic to the province of Le Marche, to the birthplace of Rossini, the beach resort of Pesaro where each year at the time of Fer'Agosto there is a Festival dedicated to his operas.  It is along the lines of what you see in Salzburg but on a reduce scale but nonetheless of the highest quality, we are in Italy and Italians do not joke with opera, it's serious business.
The web site: http://www.rossinioperafestival.it

Pesaro is a easy drive from Rome on the highway A24 then E55 in 3:30 hrs. We would usually stop in Ancona for lunch and then complete the road trip passing Fano on the way following the coast line of the Adriatic.
As the years went by with the economic crisis, it was much easier to find hotel rooms for the week.
Pesaro is a small town, it was once at the time of Rossini part of the Grand Duchy of Urbino and then a Papal State. Rossini left early in his career he could not stand the suffocating atmosphere of being under the Papal thumb. He spent most of his long life in Paris becoming fabulously wealthy in the process.

My favourite house in Pesaro, pure Art Nouveau on Piazza della Vittoria.

Pesaro being a resort town its business as usual and you will find many expensive designer stores, there is obviously a lot of money in Pesaro. Like Rimini just a few minutes north it attracts many wealthy Europeans and the beautiful Art Deco Villas are rented or sold to catered to that crowd.
Strangely in winter the city is deserted and most hotels and businesses are closed. Those who do remain open offer room rates of 40 Euros a day while in the summer it would be around 120 Euros and up which usually includes breakfast and sometimes half board. There was one Hotel owner who had a monopoly on 5 hotels in town. We stayed in two of his hotels, they were typical Italian hotels, by this I mean they were decorated with the owner's own personal touch. One was the Alexander Museum Palace Hotel, art work everywhere even in the rooms and bathrooms, all very modern. It is not to everyone's taste.

The web site: http://www.alexandermuseum.it
The owner is an eccentric Italian aristocrat Count Alessandro Marcucci Pinoli di Valfesina or Nani for his friends, formerly an Italian Ambassador to Bolivia and now Honorary Consul of San Marino. He is pictured half submerged in a suit and tie in the endless pool, an eccentric marketing ploy which works well in Italy but would not work so well with North Americans who might think he was daft.

He owns other hotels like the Savoy http://www.hotelsavoypesaro.it/en and the
Hotel Gran Vittoria http://www.grandhotelvittoriapesaro.it we enjoyed this hotel for its old charm and central location.

Evening on Piazza del Popolo in Pesaro

One of our favourite bars in Pesaro for il aperitivo.

How much we enjoyed those summer holidays in Pesaro.
This year no Pesaro but Stratford Ontario, with friends, it will be just as much fun.

Here is a clip from one of my favourite movie about Ferragosto.

Buon Ferragosto a Tutti!







 

Ferr'Agosto!!! 15 Agosto

The Roman emperor Augustus so enjoyed late summer that he claimed as his own the month we now call by his name.  He ordered month-long festivities, called feriae augustus, which included games, races, and rituals to honor the goddess Diana, who was worshiped as queen of the fields as well as of heaven and earth. Augustus was equally enamored with the beguiling island of Capri, which he appropriated from the municipality of Naples in exchange for the nearby island of Ischia.

With the rise of Christianity and the suppression of pagan feasts, August 15 became a religious holiday commemorating the assumption or lifting into heaven of Mary, the mother of Jesus.  Over the centuries various communities developed special ways of honoring the Madonna.  In the Sardinian town of Sassari men carrying elaborately decorated wood columns dance through the streets.  Messina’s townspeople construct La Vara, a fantastic sixty-foot-high pyramid from which stars, clouds and figures of saints dangle. At one time young boys dressed as angels and apostles were hoisted into the air by rings attached to La Vara. As part of the ceremonies a young girl representing the Virgin Mary freed a prisoner. 

According to a Neapolitan legend, local fishermen once pulled a portrait of the Madonna from the sea, and their king ordered a church built around it at the beach.  On August 15, which became known as the Festa della Nzegna, everyone was tossed into the water. The night before the faithful ate only watermelon but feasted on sumptuous desserts the next day.

In the late  Renaissance, Rome’s governors flooded the splendid Piazza Navona for festivities that included fake fish splashing in the water and young boys diving for coins. As darkness fell, candles and torches glistened, and Romans enjoyed lavish dinners called sabatine (little Saturday feasts). Today many will have a Pranzo de Ferr'Agosto as we did in Pesaro on the Adriatic every year. 

Times have changed. Now a national holiday, Ferragosto marks the height of the Italian vacation season. In cities and towns many businesses, banks, restaurants and shops close; residents shut up their apartments and flock to the beaches. Seaside villages often end the day’s festivities with spectacular displays of  fireworks (fuochi d’artificio). 

This little clip of the famous Italian movie Pranzo di Ferr'Agosto by Gianni di Gregorio illustrates well what it is like in Italy on that day, a lunch with friends and relatives. I found it delightful because it mirrored our lives. Though we preferred to spend our vacation by the seaside.

But amid all the gaiety some Italians suffer a sad fate. Because of their jobs or finances, they  must remain in the deserted cities. And so the phrase “ferragosta in citta” has come to mean a bleak, unhappy situation.

May you have a wonderful Ferr'Agosto! Auguri a tutti!

Some random photos of things I like.

On this beautiful summer evening in August only a few days away from Ferr'Agosto, I can imagine already in Italy people leaving cities to go on vacation. Usually on a nice evening like this we would go to the Baths of Caracalla to see an opera amidst these famous ruins in Rome.

Later we would drive to Pesaro on the Adriatic for the Rossini summer Festival and have dinner at the Bristol on the boardwalk where Lorenzo Grazioli would prepare some incredible fish dish for our pleasure.

So instead here are some pictures I like on this very pleasant evening in Ottawa.

The dining room Les Ambassadeurs of the Hotel Crillon in Paris, the room is in the original 18th century decor with 6 types of coloured marble in a Louis XV style. A beautiful room the chef is Christophe Hache. What a wonderful room in which to have a meal with friends.

Sunflowers at home, such an exuberant flower.

Our Nicky nicely groomed, not something he likes in particular.

little me in my Jager jacket at the Bristol Hotel in Salzburg

At the Quirinale Palace in Rome, the personal guard of the President of the Italian Republic. A Corazzieri (Cuirassier).

For the Olympics a member of the Italian Swim team. Even the sunglasses are stylish.


Well we are returning to Salzburg in May 2013 for the music festival and I do hope we make it back to Pesaro such a lovely town. 

Legacy of Augustus

Today we celebrate in Italy a holiday which had its origin in the time of Augustus, first Emperor of Rome, a fertility feast which was part of the political program of Augustus to augment the population of Rome. Christians then took this most popular feast and gave it a make over, fertility turns to Virgin Mary, who is the Christian Venus or Minerva or both.

Ferie (Feast) of August, FerrAgosto, the Feast of the Virgin Mary ascending into Heaven upon her death. In Napoleonic times, the 15 August was Saint Napoleon I.
The French invaded Italy in the pursuit of Revolutionary ideals to abolish the superstitions of the Roman Catholic Church and most religious holidays were modified to fit a more modern agenda, as the saying went, War conquers Peace. In keeping with the general idea of the prestige of France, Napoleon wanted to do away with the influence of the Pope over life in Catholic Europe, Napoleon had Pope Pius VII arrested and carted off to Paris, to live under house arrest. He was a modernizer, his era was one of confrontation of the old order of the Princes in all Europe against that of the will of the people under the direction of one man.

Napoleon was all too aware of his humble origins, so he married his sister Pauline into the Borghese family, who is remembered for her naked pose immortalized in marble reclining as a Roman empress. The Borghese an ancient and powerful family, with at the time one of the most prestigious art collection in Europe, was for the Bonaparte family a prize catch.
His son l’Aiglon was created at birth King of Rome and the Bonaparte family palace is on Piazza Venezia in Rome between the Palace of Prince Doria Pamphilij and Prince Colona, good company all around.
Upon Napoleon’s exile to Elba and then St-Helen, the popes were quick to do away with all modern things and bring back the holiday to the original idea, but the deed was done and Italians had other ideas and despite the Popes repression and persecution of the general population, the holiday had taken on a different meaning. By 1860 unified Italy turned the holiday progressively to one of vacation and leisure for the whole family. August becoming a month of vacation, everything is closed and everyone goes to the beach, the countryside, the mountains, even if you live in the countryside you go on vacation somewhere with the family. No one in business would think of being open during FerrAgosto. Thus we find ourselves in Pesaro on the beach. Though this year because of the financial crisis in Italy, the beach is quiet, restaurants are not so busy, but the sun is shining and we are enjoying a large glass of Proseco.
Buon FerrAgosto a Tutti!

Pesaro, Le Marche, Italia

We have been spending our days either shopping or walking around or eating here and there in restaurants on the seashore. Got myself a nice pair of purple moccasins, sort of easy wear shoe. We also went back to our little beach café H2N0, same chef in the cuisine and same good seafood, had some ravioli, spinach ricotta with a creamy white fish sauce and some thyme, very nice, Andrea the owner, a young fellow, as kind and smiling as ever.
Peaches are in season now; they are very good, sweet and juicy. Sleeping a lot too, I think I was more tired than I thought after the drive from Rome but also after a day out in the sun. Bad storm yesterday in Treviso near Venice, strong gale winds, heavy rain causing flooding. Today after lunch, the sky got dark; the storm has come down the coast to us from what I can see on the satellite photo. The locals tell me that today and tomorrow Saturday we should have rain, Sunday will probably be sunny.
Recent purchase, new moccassins.

Opera last night, Sigismondo King of Poland was not very good, the design and production by Damiano Michieletto was not well received at all. It made for a lot of confusion; the storyline was already convoluted, so it left the public in an ugly mood. Rossini composed this opera before he composed Barber of Seville, you recognize in the score very similar music, Rossini basically lifted part of the score made a few changes and voilà. The singers were excellent, Daniella Barcellona, Olga Peretyatko, Antonino Siragusa, Maestro Michele Mariotti conducted. At intermission and after the show and at breakfast this morning, we spoke with other people about it and everyone was confused, some had left at intermission, a big disappointment and I wonder to what extend an Opera house can charge for a questionable presentation by a stage director who had obviously lost his way. We apparently live in the age of the Stage director.



We also found on Via Mazzolari a 12th Century old chapel, which has the Christian IHS inscribed in stone on the facade of what is now a lovely wine bar. The delightful Vaccaj sisters run it, their parents, until their retirement recently had the business for 30 yrs. In the cellar below, which you come upon by descending a stone staircase is where all the wine is kept, it use to be a place to hide for the clergy during raids by the Turks on the Adriatic coast in the middle-ages. The old Synagogue of Pesaro is located just 2 blocks away in an ancient stone building, there are no Jews in Pesaro, there were only 12 in total in 1931, the community had been moving for years south to Ancona mostly for reasons of shifting business opportunities. The building is maintained as a museum by the Jewish community of Ancona and by FAI the historical society of Italy who looks after important heritage sites. You can visit the Temple on Thursday’s from 4 to 7 pm.
It has a communal bath, an oven to bake unleaven bread, a fountain for ritual washing of hands, wonderful baroque decorations.

Pesaro is a city full of Art, artists, art nouveau architecture, music, good wines of the Marche region, excellent food. Rossini was born here 1792, closer to us the great soprano Renata Tebaldi, also a Pesarese. A quiet and pleasant vacation destination.
One of the many lovely houses in Pesaro, c.1900

On our way to the Adriatic coast

The Oreste Ruggieri House in Pesaro, c.1900 Art Nouveau style.

We left Rome around 10 am and it took us about 2 hours to make it to Ancona on the Adriatic coast, most of the highway across (west to east) of the Italian Peninsula (A24) had very light traffic. We turned off unto the Adriatica Highway (A14) just North of Pescara. We stopped for lunch in Ancona at a restaurant we went to last year. Very good food, many awards and friendly owner. See www.osteriastrabacco.it

Ancona is one of those cities, a seaport, where you need a GPS to find your way unless you are very familiar with the city.

Afterwards we were just 66 km south of Pesaro so we took the SS16 towards Fano and then Pesaro. On our way to the coast, I got a phone call from the hotel we had booked our suite. The receptionist tells me that our room is really too small for what we reserved would we mind moving one block away to their other hotel the Vittoria, same price, etc. I knew the Vittoria, it is owned by the same family who owns several hotels in Pesaro and Urbino. The family of Count Alessandro-Ferruccio Marcucci Pinoli are old Papal nobility stock and related to the Duke of Montefeltro and Della Rovere. His web site www.nani-faivivere.it The families ruled the Marche region at the time of the Renaissance. The hotel Vittoria is small about 38 rooms and suite, formely a private noble house on the seashore. It is very much a 1900 style hotel, formal, quiet, elegant. It is I am told amongst the 20 best hotels in all Italy. It has all the services any one would want, pool, sauna, gym, the restaurant has haute cuisine and all dishes served have a calorie count so if you are watching your weight, it’s very useful, no fast food or children menu here, waiters in dark suit, silverware, linen tablecloth and fine porcelain.
The view from our room.

I like the hotel because it is so quiet, you hear nothing even in the lobby or the restaurant. The parking is interesting, they have exactly 4 parking spaces for small cars. The other hotel, a block away, were I am parked has space for 8 cars total. They expect their clients to arrive by train like in 1900. Their site www.viphotels.it
The most common language spoken or heard in Pesaro after Italian is German, the Rossini Festival brings a lot of fans from German speaking countries.

Some wines

Italy is always thought of has a great wine country, in fact it is not or I should say it was not until about 25 yrs ago. When we first arrived in Rome we took some wine appreciation courses at the Wine Academy of Rome on the Spanish Steps. The sommelier of the Academy gave us a history of wines and their evolution in Italy. Romans in antiquity drank a lot of red wine, it was heavy and high in alcohol more than 16% in volume and was fermented in clay amphoras which gave the wine a very distinct earthy taste. People then would dilute their wine with water so it could become drinkable. For today's wine drinkers it would probably be undrinkable, too heavy and too pungent as a red wine, there was no white wines and no rosé back then.

Then wine continues to evolve but the technique to making wine did not change much for centuries in Italy, amphoras were used for a long time but with time oak casks started to appear has taste changed. But red wines dominated the scene because everyone could make it at home in the countryside, it was cheap and available to all. The Nobles of course wanted better for their table and this is what moved things along. The great wines though start to appear only in the 1970's when producers started to compete in Europe with other producers and also started to improve on the making of white wines. It was a process of refining and improving the wine making techniques. Italy now has great red wines and white wines and it is not the old cheap Chianti in the funny glass bottle you could stick a candle into once you had drank the contents.

So while we were in Pesaro, we visited an Enoteca called Pane al Pane, Vino al Vino in the old town in Palazzo Gradari, it is located in the cellars of the old Palace on Via Rossini near the Cathedral, they also occupy the courtyard of the palace and you can have a glass of wine with some olives and charcuterie. The owner showed us around and we bought a selection of white wines from Le Marche region, very nice wines produced locally, you cannot always find wines from all the regions in Rome's Enotecas unless you go to Tremani or to some large wine dealer and even then there is no guarantees.

Here is what we bought, Le Vele 2008 a Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi, Colle Paradiso, Ekeos 2007, and San Sisto 2004 by Fazi Battaglia,all Verdicchio which I find to be a delightful wine with fish or any white meat, we also bought a Tenuta Campioli, Bianchello del Metauro.